by The Editors on February 17, 2009
Here we go again. The 2nd Maloof Money Cup is scheduled for three days in July at California’s Orange County Fairgrounds.
“The Maloof Family is honored to be presenting the World Championship of Skateboarding again this year. We are particularly excited about all of our skaters and sponsors that helped make last year such a huge success and we look forward to seeing them all back again at the OC Fair this summer,” said Joe Maloof.
It’s a bit too much of a show for us, but most people who went last years said they saw some great skateboarding, some even saw Corey Duffel get sucker punched).
[Link: Earthtimes.com]
by The Editors on February 17, 2009
As surprised as we were to learn that snowboarders are still racing slalom, it was sad to see that the management at Cypress Mountain, home to next year’s Vancouver Olympic snowboard events, could not pull of the course prep necessary to hold a slalom event and it was cancelled, according to a story in the Vancouver Sun.
We were pre-riding on the race hill and a lot of athletes were irate at the snow conditions,” said a frustrated Alexa Loo of Richmond, a veteran on the Canadian team. . . .“There was basically a metre of sugar. There was no bottom. You try to push and there was nothing to push on. It would have been like trying to run a track meet in six inches of mud.” . . .The decision to cancel was made by the International Federation de Ski and accepted by Vanoc, the 2010 organizing committee which is overseeing the venue as an Olympic test.
Even some of the halfpipe riders were complaining:
“I just get a bad vibe,” Canadian halfpiper Jeff Batchelor of Oakville, Ont., said Saturday. . . His coach, Jesse Fulton, used even stronger language, about both the condition of the superpipe — “it’s off axis, not steep enough, not long enough” — and Cypress’ lack of co-operation.
Hopefully, they’re figure it out by next year when the eyes of the world are watching.
[Link: Vancouver Sun]
by The Editors on February 17, 2009
A boat with 30 illegal immigrants from the west coast of Morroco onboard capsized in the surf near Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and a Uruguayan surfer named Christian Hunt was able to rescue six of them, according to a story in the Irish Times.
Mr Hunt said he ran into the surf from his beachside house after his wife saw that the boat had capsized. “When I got out there it was already a nightmare scenario. There were people floating off, the boat was overturned and several people were still holding on to it,” he said. “They would all have gone to the bottom if they hadn’t managed to grab the boat.” . . . While he threw himself into the water, his wife ran to get the surfboard, which he used to ferry the immigrants towards the beach. Mr Hunt said that on one of his journeys to the boat a 14-year-old boy told him to look for a smaller child first. “I hadn’t realised that he himself was so young,” he said.
Twenty-one others died in the accident and three others were still missing according to the story.
[Link: Irish Times]
by The Editors on February 16, 2009
Two years ago while making practice runs at the 2007 USASA Nationals at Northstar-At-Tahoe 14-year-old Tyler Eklund of Bend, Oregon broke his C-3 vertebrae leaving him paralyzed. But thanks to the work of friends he made it back on Mt. Bachelor snow on Sunday February 15, 2009 according to a story on Kgw.com.
Strapped into a “sit-ski” made by Oregon Adaptive Sports, Eklund packed along his ventilator, and had his breathing tubes wrapped in hand warmers to keep them from freezing. . . . “It feels awesome – a dream come true, pretty much,” Eklund told NewsChannel 21 in Bend Sunday. When asked how long he’d been waiting to get back on the snow, he said, “Pretty much since the first day I got hurt. Just to come up and do it again, it feels awesome.”
Makes us realize how much we take for granted and how strong Tyler and his family are to make this happen again. We’re glad Tyler can still enjoy the ride.
[Link: KGW.com]
by The Editors on February 16, 2009
While the ASP World Cup Tour and the PR crew at Quiksilver would like to say that Kelly Slater is committing to another year on the ASP World Cup Tour and to winning his 10th world title, all he’ll say now is that he’ll be on the Goldie and that he will compete in the Quiksilver Pro at Snapper Rocks beginning February 28, 2009.
“I commit to where I am,” Slater said. “I’ll be on the Gold Coast for sure. I’m pretty excited about some new equipment and am ready to surf, I think. No. 10 is alluring and is there for the attempt, but I’ll let everyone else worry about the pressure of it as well as I can.”
If he does go after it, current world number two Bede Durbige is letting him know that he’s gunning to make sure it doesn’t happen, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
I have had a good steady climb on the ratings so I guess there is only one more spot to go now,” said 25-year-old Durbidge, who has risen every year since arriving on the main tour in 2005. . . “To take Kelly out this year is a big ask, but it is achievable and I feel I’m up to the challenge.”
We’re going to go way out on a limb and predict that Kelly will keep surfing the tour as long as he is winning. For the rest of the official ASP release, follow the jump.
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by The Editors on February 15, 2009
Okay, so Shaun White and Kelly Clark won the FIS Snowboard World Cup at Cypress yesterday in a pre-run of what will probably happen at the 2010 Winter Olympics. That’s great an all, but we just couldn’t pass up this headline from The Toronto Star:
Red-hot Tomato flies to World Cup victory.
Looks like the sports writing nickname game just had the bar raised.
[Link: Toronto Star]
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by The Editors on February 15, 2009
It appears that the US Snowboarding Team is not going to be able to make it to the final world cup events of the season according to a story on Reuters.
We are short (of enough money) to make it all the way through the season but we’ve known that since last summer when we did our budgeting,” U.S. national team head coach Peter Foley told Reuters. . . . “We thought they would find that money to get us through March but with the tightness of the economy we just haven’t been able to find it. It’s tight with sponsorship and donor dollars and everything costs more.
We were thinking maybe they should have a bake sale but then realized they should probably just shine it and wait until next year when the US Snowboard Team is loaded with people America cares about and the Olympics are on the line.
[Link: Reuters]
by The Editors on February 13, 2009
After all our blather about how much we hate print magazines that are reproduced online as “digital editions” a friend pointed out that compelling content can be done with a similar concept and that Slap Magazine has been doing it for a while now. Check out the Tyler Bledsoe interview for a little reminder.
The full-size animated sequences, .MP3 audio clips, and smooth page changing navigation system make all the difference in the world. It’s a solution that saves most of what is great about the contextual elements of traditional magazine layout while giving it digital life in a way that retains non-linear accessibility. And, aside from the Flash bits it even works okay on an iPhone.
[Link: Slap Magazine via Etnies]
by The Editors on February 13, 2009
After reading through Mahalo.com’s complete, Skate 2 breakdown we were about to say “someone obviously has too much time on their hands,” but then who are we to talk. For those interested in seeing exactly what’s in the game without sitting down and playing it, it’s all here.
[Link: Mahalo.com]
by The Editors on February 13, 2009
The Motley Fool investor information site has recently given Volcom a “4-star” rating and a headline that says that the “stock is about to pop.” Not sure what that means exaclty, but here is their logic:
Over on CAPS, 380 of the 416 All-Star members who have rated Volcom — or 91% — believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include MagicDiligence and bullshiite, both of whom are ranked in the top 10% of our community. . . . Late last month, MagicDiligence noted that Volcom “is smartly run, financially sound, and has plenty of growth opportunities overseas. It’s also extraordinarily cheap!”
Not to say we disagree, just that we’re not so sure that user-generated stock advice is the best guide for where people should invest their money.
[Link: Motley Fool]
